HOUSE OVERSIGHT 025894 I'm writing about the Iran deal. So far have only sent a form paragraph in response to requests. Below. Noam On Iran, as usual, I'm a gloomy contrarian. I'm glad the treaty was signed, and it's kind of fun to watch the Republican lunatics shrieking hysterically as they try to kill it (as they may). And Israeli hypocrisy has gone well beyond being comical. But in fact the whole thing is farcical, in my opinon. In the US, Iran is "the greatest threat to world peace", intoned constantly from on high, in the media, everywhere. There is also such a thing as world opinion, as measured by such ultra-radicals as Gallup. It turns out that the greatest threat to world peace is the US, by a very wide margin, no one else even close, and Iran barely mentioned. The American population is protected from these unwanted facts by the Free Press: not reported. There is an organization called US intelligence. They brief Congress regularly on the international security situation, all quite public. On Iran, they point out that it has very limited military power, even by regional standards (a small fraction of Saudi Arabia, for example). Its strategic doctrine is defensive. If— a big If— it has plans for nuclear weapons, that would be part of its deterrent strategy. Now who would be opposed to Iran having a deterrent strategy? Answer is clear: the rogue states that rampage violently in the region and don't want any impediment: the US and Israel, also lesser ones like UK and France. One simple way to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons would be to establish a nuclear-weapons free zone in the region, as has been done elsewhere (over US objections). That's been advocated by the Arab states for 20 years, with very wide global support, including Iran. It comes up regularly at the 5-year review meetings of the Nonproliferation Treaty, at the UN, again a few months ago, when, again, it was blocked by the US to protect its Israeli client, which has a hug